by Kevin Wilson
ECCO, $23.99, 310 pages
Buster and Annie Fang, as children, were half of a family of performance artists who create chaos and mayhem for the experience it provides. Their parents, Caleb and Camille, would take them to random places and set up a scenario to enact rage or shock or horror from passersby. As adults, Buster and Annie find themselves unable to function in life and both end up back at home and living with their parents.
If you are looking for a funny, insightful, and bittersweet book, look no further than The Family Fang. The story of the Fangs is intriguing from the first word and becomes more interesting as the story progresses. The characters are delightfully written and complex. This is particularly true of Annie and Buster, who are the primary focus of the novel. The author nicely shows their struggle to break free from their family patterns but their difficulty and reluctance to actually be truly free. This is a truly wonderful book to read.
Barbara Cothern